Monterrey, Mexico, is 1,120 miles and two time zones southeast of Tijuana, about a three-hour flight if you go nonstop, double that if you change planes.

That’s the short road trip. That’s nothing.

Trust the Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles. They know.

No professional sports team in North America, or perhaps anywhere on the planet, has travelled more in 2013 than soccer’s Xolos, logging 69,109 miles across four countries since January for a mere 13 away games. Thursday (6 p.m. PDT, Fox Deportes) they’re in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, for the second leg of the Copa Libertadores quarterfinals against Atletico Mineiro. On Friday, they’ll begin the 6,020-mile journey home.

Consider: The distance between San Diego and London is 5,470 miles.

Consider: This is their third trip to Brazil since March.

Consider: Earth’s circumference is 24,859.82 miles, and the Xolos have done that nearly times in less than five months.

“We’re kind of used to the travel, since we have to do it so much in Mexico,” Roberto Cornejo, the club’s assistant general manager, said by phone shortly after making the three-plane, 18½-hour trip to Belo Horizonte. “It definitely helps us – a little. But it still is very hard.”

Cornejo has been to 11 of the 13 road games, missing Toluca and Oruro in early spring. Where was he? Accompanying a Xolos youth team to a tournament … in South Africa.

But this is part of the deal, establishing a first-division team in Mexico’s most northern city and then qualifying for a prestigious tournament that almost exclusively features South American clubs. And then having the two intersect, the Clausura season of Liga MX running from January through May, the Copa Libertadores from February through July.

Coach Antonio Mohamed made it clear from the start: The priority was Copa Libertadores, the annual (and lucrative) club championship for the Americas that a Mexican team has never won. The sacrifice was that he didn’t always field his best lineup for Liga MX games, and it ultimately bit the Xolos when they failed to make the eight-team playoffs just five months after winning the Apertura title.

But Mohamed, an Argentine, had coached in the Libertadores before and understands its unique, almost cruel demands – long flights, rabid crowds, preposterous elevations (the game in Bolivia was at 12,145 feet), radical climate changes, fatigued players, expectant owners. His strategy worked, and the Xolos became the only Mexican club (of three) to survive the group stage and now find themselves a victory away from the semis.

“You look past it because of what the Libertadores means to the players, even though it is a lot of travel,” Cornejo said. “The importance of this tournament, you forget quickly about how long you spend on planes getting there.”

The travel has gone smoothly, or as smoothly as 69,109 miles in five months can, devoid of any harrowing delays or emergency landings or vanishing luggage.